The present invention is an improvement on the drive/frame assemblies that are disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,469, granted Dec. 27, 1988, to Raymond K. Foster, and entitled Reduced Size Drive/Frame Assembly For A Reciprocating Floor Conveyor; and by U.S. Pat. No. 4,748,893, granted Jun. 7, 1988, to Raymond Keith Foster, and entitled Drive/Frame Assembly For A Reciprocating Floor; and by U.S. Patent Pub. No. US2007-0045085 A1, published Mar. 1, 2007, based on an application filed by Raymond Keith Foster and entitled Reciprocating Slat Conveyor.
Each of the above three patent documents discloses a drive assembly having fixed piston rods and piston heads and movable cylinder barrels to which transverse drive beams are connected. The piston rods are clamped at their outer ends to transverse mounting beams and transverse drive beams are clamped to the movable cylinders. Conveyor slats are connected to the drive beams. This has proven to be an advantageous way of constructing the drive assembly and adapting it for mounting in an installation.
There is a need for simplifying the construction of the drive/frame assembly both in terms of reducing the total number of parts and the number of kinds of parts without sacrifice in the power transmitted by the hydraulic drive units to the transverse drive beams and the conveyor slats. A principal object of the present invention is to fulfill this need.
It is an object of the invention to construct a hydraulic drive unit that is powerful and at the same time is relatively small in size and is constructed from a maximum number of common parts and a minimum number of different parts. The drive/frame assembly has been simplified and made easier to manufacture, assembly and disassemble.